Oh, so very wintry
Mommyo, reading the weather report last weekend: “Subzero temperatures have arrived in Chicago and will stay all week.” Daddyo, dourly: “Yep.” The Seven-Year-Old, anxiously: “How subzero?…
What’s on The Seven-Year-Old’s mind this week?
This week, The Seven-Year-Old is reading news about elephants, sea dragons, and sleet. She’s also devouring books about Star Wars, dragons, and Ooblecks.
What’s The Seven-Year-Old reading this week?
This week, The Seven-Year-Old is devouring news stories about Vikings, dragon bones, and mega-rodents. She’s also reading books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Benjamin Sherman, Bill Watterson, and Brad Meltzer.
Wait, snowflakes really are that shape?
Chicago doesn’t get nearly as much snow as Boston does, but I’ve found that makes us appreciate every flake that falls that much more.
What The Seven-Year-Old is thinking about this week: Sea monsters, gooey birds, & the measles outbreak
Once upon a time, when I was a sprightly young blogger of great ambition, I would end the week with a round-up of news stories that…
What to do with your old Christmas tree
In his book, Why Don’t Woodpeckers Get Headaches?, birding enthusiast Mike O’Connor suggests that folks who purchase real Christmas trees place them along the fence in their backyard once Christmas is over to provide shelter this winter for local birds. That got me wondering, what else can you do with your tree once Christmas is over?
What’s that green and red-striped bug?
Yesterday we met some friends for a Sunday afternoon meander through the Spring Valley nature preserve in Schaumburg, Illinois. As part of her program of studying trees (a project made easy by the fact that the park has little signs identifying each of the major types in the preserve), The Seven-Year-Old came across a little green and red-striped bug crawling along an old log. What is that?
What is that rat-sized beetle?
On a recent trip to Field Museum, The Seven-Year-Old and I wandered into a tiny room downstairs that looks deceptively like a pleasant little reading nook. There’s a desk, a wall of butterflies, a collection of bugs trapped in amber, and rat-sized beetles. What are those things called?
Wordless Wednesday: More Birdwatching in Chicago
Spotted this Great Blue Heron on my way to the Wooded Island a week or two ago. Related Links: The Osaka Garden on Chicago’s Wooded Island (Caterpickles)…
Wandering around Chicago with The Seven-Year-Old: The Osaka Garden on Chicago’s Wooded Island
Next time you’re at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, take a few minutes to follow the walking trail behind the museum across the Clarence Darrow and/or North bridges.
There you’ll find Frederick Law Olmsted’s Wooded Island and the Osaka Garden, one of the few remaining remnants of the 1893 Columbian Exposition. The island has been converted into a nature sanctuary and is an important stopping point for birds migrating through the Midwest.
CATERPICKLES 